The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is bringing its vision for cinema to life. Ahead of its September 2026 opening, the museum announced on Thursday during a San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel their first ever Film Program that will explore filmmaking as both a storytelling medium as well as a technological art form, giving visitors the opportunity to experience cinema’s history through curated screenings and immersive presentations.
The details of this program were revealed by the Curator of the Lucas Museum, Ryan Linkof; Seth Green and Matthew Senreich of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios; and President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics, Jim Lee. Award-winning actress and producer Keke Palmer moderated the panel.
Rather than following the traditional museum screening format, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s inaugural film program will be designed as an interactive, gallery-like experience. Visitors will be able to enter either the Robert Flaherty Theater or the Slavko Vorkapich Theater in a drop-in style experience where films will be screened on a non-stop basis.
Documentary screenings in the Robert Flaherty Theater will include:
- Episodes of a new documentary series commissioned for the Lucas Museum, Seeing is Believing: The Story of Narrative Art, directed by Robin Dashwood
- Episodes of the 2024 television series The Power of Film, created by Howard Suber and directed by Laura Gabbert
- Documentaries about artists whose work is exhibited in the Lucas Museum, including Norman Rockwell, Jim Lee, Charles Schulz, Maurice Sendak, Diego Rivera, J.C. Leyendecker, and Weegee
- Comic Book Confidential, directed by Robert Mann
Screenings in the Slavko Vorkapich Theater, dedicated to “the emotion of motion” with innovative short films from the earliest years of the medium to the present, will include:
- Montage sequences by Vorkapich for films such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
- Early silent films by Georges Méliès, Émile Cohl, W.K.L. Dickson, Edwin S. Porter, and others
- Early animations by Winsor McCay
- Experimental films of Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, and others
- Early sound animations by Walt Disney Studios and Fleischer Studios
- Experimental films by Canadian animator-director Norman McLaren
- Looney Tunes
- Abstract “visual music” works by Mary Ellen Bute, Oskar Fischinger, Jordan Belson, and others
- Excerpts from Busby Berkeley musicals
- Experimental films of the 1960s by Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, and others
- Experimental animation by Vince Collins
- Anime from Cowboy Bebop
- An episode of Star Wars: Visions
- Student films by George Lucas, 1965-1969
The films selected for the theaters vary in length from a few minutes to 90 minutes in running time, and visitors may come and go as they like.
“We are excited to share details of our inaugural Film Program,” said Tracey Bates, CEO of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. “George Lucas named the theaters to honor two innovators of cinema: Robert Flaherty and Slavko Vorkapich. The theaters will be spaces to connect with moving images as one of the most transformative modes of visual storytelling, making the Film Program an essential component of a visit to the Lucas Museum.”
The Lucas Museum opens its doors September 22. Tickets are now on sale from opening through February 2027, at lucasmuseum.org.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from SDCC ‘26.
